The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-12-15
f1uences which will affect his i'm.

he understood all about what you were
saying. You think the child does not APP
preciate that beautiful cloud, but its most
delicate lines are reflected into the very
depths of the youthful nature, and score
of years from now you will see the
shadow of that cloud in the tastes and re-
finements developed. The song with which
you sing that child to sleep will echo
through all it's life, and ring back from
the very arches of Heaven. | think that
often the first seven years of child's life
decides whether it shall be irascible, wasp
ish, rude, false. hypocrit;cal. or gentle,
truthful, frank, obedient, honest and
Christian.
The present generations of men will
pass off very much as they are now. AL
though the Gospel is offered them, the
general rule is that drunkards die drunk
ards, thieves die thieves, libertines die
libertines. Therefore, to the youth we
turn. Before they SOW will oats get them
to SOW wheat and barley. You fill the
bushel measure with good corn and there
will be no room for husks. Glorious Al
fred Goodman was converted at ten years
of age. At Carlisle, Pa, during the
progress of a religious meeting in the
Methodist Church, while many were
kneeling at the foot of the altar, this boy
knelt in a corner of the church, all by
himself, and said: "Precious Saviour,
thou art saving others, oh, will thou not
save me?" A Presbyterian elder kuelt be-
side him and led him into the light.
Enthroned Alfred Goodman! Tell me
from the skies, were you converted too
early? But can not hear his answer. 1t
is overpowered by the huzzas of tens of
thousands who were brought to God
through his ministry. Isaac Watts, the
great Christian poet, was converted at
nine years of age. Robert Hail. the great
Baptist evangelist, was converted at
twelve years of age. Jonathan Edwards
the greatest of American logicians, was
converted at seven years of age.
Oh, for one generation of holy men and
women? Shall it be the next? Fathers
and mothers, you, under God are to de-
eide whether from your families shall 60
forth towards, inebriates, counterfeiters,
blasphemers, and whether there shall be
those bearing your image and carrying
your name fes ering in the low haunts of
vice, and foundering in dissipation and
making the midnight of their lives
horrid with a long howl of ruin, Or
whether from your family affairs shall
come the Christians, the reformers, the
teachers, the ministers of Christ, the COM
forters of the troubled, the healers Of the
sick, the enacters of good laws, the found
ers of charitable institutions, and great
many who shall in the humber spheres
of toll and usefulness serve God and the
best interests of the human race.
You can not as parents shirk the re-
sponsibiiity. God has charged you with
| a mission, and all the thrones of Heaven
are waiting to see whether you will do
your duty. We must not forget that it is
not SO much what we teach our children
as what we are in their presence. We
| wish them to be better than we are, but
| the probability is that they will only
be reproductions OF our own character.
German literature has much to say of the
| "specter of Brocken." Among those
| mountains travellers in certain conditions
of the atmosphere see themselves copied
on gigantic scale in the clouds. At first
| the travellers do not realize that it is them
selves on larger SCALE When they lift
| a hand Or move the head this monster
| specter does the same, and with such en-
| largement of proportions that the scene
| is most exciting, and thousands have gone
| to that place just to behold the specter of
| Broken. The probability is that some of
| our faults which we consider small and
insignificant, if we do not put an end to
| them, will be copied on larger scale
in the lives of our children, and per-
| haps dilated and exaggerated into
spectral proportions. You need
| not go as far off as the Broken to see
| that process. The first thing in i'm
portance in the education of our chill.
dren is to make ourselves, by the grace of
God, fit examples to be copied. The day
will come when you must confront that
child, not in the church pew ON a calm
Sabbath, but amid the constern alton of
the rising dead, and the flying heavens
and burning world. From your side
that son or daughter, bone of your bone
! heart OF your heart, the fathers brow his
brow, the mothers eye his eye, shall go
forth to an eternal destiny. What will
be your joy if at last you hear their feet
in the same golden highway and hear
their voices in the same rapturous song,
| illustrations, while the eternal ages last,
of what faithful parent could, under
| God, accomplish.
| l was re -g of q mother who, diving,
had all her children about her, and took
each one of them by the hand and asked
| ohOlh w iiSCu hol ia l1Sdfcly anu Will
tears and sobs such as those only know
who have stood by the death-bed of a
| good old mother, they all promised.
But there was a young man of nineteen
who had been very wild and reckless, and
hard, and proud, and when she took his
hand she said: .Now. my boy, l want
you to promise me before I die that you
will become a Christian and meet
me in Heaven" The young
man made no answer, for there was so
much for him to give up if he made and
| kept such promise. But the aged mother
persisted in saying: "You won't deny me
that before l go, will you? This parting
must not be forever. Tell me now you will
serve God and meet me in the land where
there is no parting" Quaking with
emotion, he stood making up his mind AMI
halting and hesitating, but at last his
| stubbornness yielded, and he threw his
| arms around his mothers neck and said /:
"Yes, mother; will, 1 will" And as he
| finished the last word of his promise
her spirit assembled. 1 til ank God the
young man kept his promise. Yes, he
kept it. May God give all mothers and
fathers the gladness Of their children's
salvation.